Gay dating app Grindr has a new venture – publishing. The app just published their first book that was done in a collaboration with Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Matt Lambert. Book is an exploration of LGBTQ community.

Talking to Dazed Digital about the reason for doing the book, Matt said: ‘I skyped with Landis and he said he’d love to commission me to do a photo series. It was right around the Pulse nightclub shootings and the conversation was a response to (the) cynical conservatives in America who mocked the idea that people celebrated gay clubs and bars as sacred spaces. But if you’ve never known what it feels like to not feel safe or not feel comfortable to express your love in public, then you’ll never understand the necessity of needing these spaces. They’re important in London and New York, but in smaller towns and places that ostracise LGBTQ+ people, they are vital. These spaces are incredibly important places to come of age, often before we’re able to come of age and come out in the real world. So the idea was just to document conversations with young gay men and ask them when and where that space was for them.’

Grindr has so commissioned the book to explore the role of ‘safe spaces, both physical and virtual, in the development of LGBTQ+ identity’ continuing saying ‘[We] commissioned this book to help us all answer the question of where we find ourselves again.’